Put In Work
by transemacabre
Summary: Darcy teaches Loki a few tricks of her own. Post-movie AU, written for fandom's collective obsession with pole dancer Loki. Slight Loki/Darcy.


Loki looked on curiously as Darcy unpacked the box and began assembling the odd metal pole that she'd ordered from the internet. After his defeat at the hands of the Avengers, Loki had been a 'guest' at SHIELD HQ, and with his powers severely inhibited and eyes watching him all hours of the day and night, he'd found life rather boring lately and appreciated any distraction, no matter how small.

Having tugged the box into an unused office room, Darcy pushed all the ugly furniture to the wall and tore into her giant box. This was how Loki found her, surrounded by metal pieces and bits of packing foam.

Darcy installed the pole and gave it a couple of firm tugs. Satisfied that it was secure, she dusted off her hands and went to shoo him away. "All right, time to make yourself scarce," she said. "I'm not here to put on a show for you."

Loki slid off the desk he had been sitting on, but made no move to leave. "What are you going to do?"

Darcy busied herself connecting her ipod to a set of tiny speakers. "I'm dancing," she said.

Taken aback, Loki said, "You mean to dance with a pole?" Asgardians danced arm-in-arm, or in intricate formations (or just as likely, if they were Thor, they stepped on the girl's toes all night and called it dancing) but they did not dance with poles.

"It's an Earth thing," Darcy said. A heavy bass line thrummed out of her ipod as she set it on the desk. "You spin around the pole, forwards, backwards, up and down. I need something to do around here to keep me occupied. Something that's mine."

Loki tilted his head to one side. Darcy and the other humans were, in their own way, as much the prisoners of SHIELD as he was. Due to their association with Thor, the lives they had spent years building had been turned upside-down. Everywhere they went, everything they did, they were monitored. Darcy would never now have a normal life, living in a dorm and being wooed by some boring human boy. She knew too much.

He could sympathize with the need to have something that was within one's own control, something chosen, not forced upon you or deemed neccesary for survival. That need had been why, so many eons ago, he had dedicated himself to the study of sorcery. Loki had poured over mouldering old books, determined to master their art.

"Teach me," he said suddenly.

Darcy stared at him, perplexed. "Do what now?"

Loki approached the pole, tapped a nail against it. "Teach me this dance. I would learn to dance upon a pole."

"Um." Darcy furrowed her brows. "Are you serious? This isn't something you're saying just so you can perv on me in my underwear, is it?"

Loki sighed. "I have lived for a thousand years amongst a race that is eternally beautiful and ageless. Your charms, while considerable, are nothing so spectacular to me."

"Okay, I think that was a little insulting," Darcy said, "but I'm gonna let it slide." She pointed at his lower half. "If you really want to learn, then the first lesson is proper gear. You need your bare skin to stick to the pole, which you can't do in those pants and that cloak."

Wordlessly, Loki stripped down to his smallclothes.

Darcy swallowed hard. "Oooookay. You are serious." She stood beside the pole, grasping it with her right hand. "Hold the pole as high up as you can reach. That'll give you room to slide down." She stood up on her tip-toes and began walking around the pole, slow and deliberate, keeping her eyes fixed on Loki. "And then you hook with your outside foot and then-" and Darcy spun around the pole, gracefully floating to the floor.

Now it was Loki's turn. He grasped the pole as Darcy showed him, then led with his inside foot, as she told him. As he began his first walk around the pole, Darcy called suggestions.

"Play with your hair," she said, and he threaded his fingers through his hair, his head falling back a little. "Nice, confident walk," Darcy encouraged. "Remember, as long as you're on the pole, you're in control. You're powerful. You're the sexiest thing on the planet. You're everything you want to be. Now just hook and - there you go!"

Loki spun around the pole, a little slower than Darcy had, but immediately hopped to his feet and went for another spin.

Darcy applauded. "Not bad! The trick is to remember that poledancing is all about making circles." She took to the pole, lifting herself up and spinning backwards, her dark hair loose and wild, her face a little flushed from exertion and pleasure. Loki watched her, rapt, then allowed her to position him on the pole, moving his arm there, his foot there, showing him how to do a backspin.

Twenty minutes into the lesson, Darcy declared that Loki was a "natural". "The pole burns a little at first," she told him as they took a water break. "My first two weeks, I was covered in bruises. Not cool. But you get used to it." Sitting her cup aside, Darcy smiled up at him and asked, "You wanna learn floor work?"

"What's that?"

"Well, there's a bit of an art to the transition between tricks. You don't want to haul yourself up off the floor, butt in the air, to get back on the pole. You want it to look beautiful. Easy." Darcy spun around the pole, but this time, when she slid to the floor she rolled onto her back then arched up, her hands trailing behind her alluringly.

Loki's own attempt looked somewhat less alluring, so Darcy showed him another trick. He spun around the pole, slid to the floor, then rolled onto his belly, bracing his arms under him. Darcy laid in front of him so he could mirror her movements as her hips slowly pumped, every movement making her breasts brush the floor. Loki's mouth was suddenly dry.

"This is what we call," and Darcy grinned at him, hair falling over one eye, "_extra credit_."


End file.
